Luke's 1st birthday

 

I got some cute hat pictures pretty quickly...I gave him two golf balls to hold so he wouldn't mess with his hat (it helped to some degree!) but I was worried the whole time that he was going to chuck one of them at my camera!!!  He's got quite the arm!!!!

We actually had a very small party with just one other family (the Greens...the 3 boys we always play with) and Charlie's parents were visiting at the time so they came also.  I had planned to do a golf Hole-in-ONE theme all along, but when I got home from Virginia in March, my party planning mood had somewhat fizzled, not to mention Easter was the weekend before Luke's birthday (and Leevi had been out of town until that Friday) and the following weekend started Spring Break and literally everyone travels in Europe at some point during that week..including us when we kicked off our month-long trips to Ireland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Arizona!  I felt bad not giving Luke a huge 1st birthday luau like the girls had in Hawaii, so last minute I pulled together some decorations!  I was actually glad that we kept it small because it was so much more relaxing (for the prep and during the party!!  And of course it kept the cost down considering we were about to be vacationing for the next month!!!)
 
These were the pictures I cut out to use as cupcake toppers...various photos from his first year.  I thought it was a cute idea and debated about saving them or not and decided not to.  The clutter is never ending, so I'll just put them on here!

I tied in some of the food with the golf theme...bucket of balls, "slice, chip, and wedge", a water hazzard and flag sticks.  Of course all of these ideas were from Pintrest (how did I ever survive??!)  There were a few other ideas that I didn't do...rice krispy treats for a "sand trap" or blue jello cups as a water hazzard (I really didn't want to add more sweets! and plastic golf sets as party favors...too fun!

He was NOT a fan of the cake and being messy.  He gave a decent effort but after a few minutes he was done.  He made a mess but really didn't eat much which is fine because who really wants a one year old to have cake!!! 

 And a video of us singing to him...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJXIe00Vucc&feature=share&list=UUaBqgwXsY3rPAsNnSstIwSQ

 The Frosting Monster!!!

 All clean and ready to open presents...for as much as Luke loves baths, he was miserable for this one and I have no clue why!!!

On Luke's actual birthday, we had the Kents over for dinner (they were our first friends here in Germany and they still live back in Heidelberg about 1hr 20 min away.)  Luke still wasn't at all interested in his cake! 

 He was done after about 3 minutes!

And of course I have to throw some oldies in here....can't believe it's already been a year!!!!!
Love at first sight!!!!

 The big sisters meeting Luke for the first time on Easter

 They would sit like this for H-O-U-R-S!!!!

Happy birthday, little buddy!!!!!  We love you more than you'll ever know and I'm so glad that Hailey and Daddy begged and pleaded for another baby!  :) 

 

12 months old

I'm on a Luke-streak here!!!!  Here's his 12 month post of random things and I'm almost finished with his birthday post!!!  It's always a blast with this bundle of joy-ball of energy!!!!! 

 

His 1 yr old obsessions are balls, cars, and being OUTSIDE!!!  He has two teeth on the bottom and the top four came in goofy...middle and left and then middle and right.  He's a tiny little squirt so I'm keeping him on formula for awhile...plus with all of our crazy traveling, formula is sooo much easier to carry around than milk!  At his 12 month appointment he weighed 21.5lbs and was 28.5in...30% for weight and 13% for height!  He says ball, mama, dada, baba (bottle).  He can blow kisses and he tries to jump...too cute!!!

 

One more picture in his #7 shirt!!!! 

He wore this on his 7 month birthday and it still fits him because he's leaned out so much!  And just like a boy to have a face full of bruises!! 

I loved doing the monthly tie pictures, but I'm glad it's over!!!!  Hailey was my helper this day...not exactly helpful! :) 

It was bitter-sweet for the both of us! :)

 

Big sister playtime!

Not the most attractive pictures of either of us, but just proving that there is a smidge of me in him!

Peek-a-boo

He found the strawberries in the grocery bag and tore a hole and helped himself!

Poor guy...Hailey gave him a pony tail!

He loves hanging with the big kids after school!!!!

Bedtime stories!!!! 

I'm sure this is a safety violation, but he uses his bumper pad as a pillow pretty often!

 

And a video...this is still an issue with uploading them directly onto the blog...grr....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eb9f_SgBVI&feature=share&list=UUaBqgwXsY3rPAsNnSstIwSQ

 

Since I'm soooo far behind on all of my posts, I might as well add some fun things from his 13th month!!!!   He takes off his diaper, blows on his food, spins in circles (crazy boy!) and has added "bye" and "ah, ah, ah" (for doing something wrong) to his vocabulary.  He has one more tooth coming in on the bottom (all of them have come in one at a time instead of as a set...just drawing the painful process out even longer!!!) and he has a molar peeking through on the top! 

 

We've had to put up all three of the little chairs! This tile floor terrifies me!

He absolutely LOVES bathtime!  He'll intentionally get on his belly to splash around and stick his face in the water to blow bubbles and he definitely lets you know that he's not happy when bathtime is over!!

We've had like 3 days of sunshine all spring (not really exaggerating here!!!!) so we get out whenever it isn't raining (even if it's still chilly!!!)

 

More 1st year fun

It's gonna take me awhile to get through all of the 1st bday pictures and video, so here is one more FIRST yr fun...one year old Luke looking at newborn Luke!  :)  (Of course, I saw it on Pintrest!!!)

 

Kai wanted in on the photo shoot!!!

Luke with his foot in the air reminded me of a picture from a photo shoot with Hailey and Kai went Kai was also ONE! 

Time flies....

I'm excited to work on Luke's FIRST birthday post, but it's crazy that it's already been a year!!!!  We are having so much fun with this little man and we could totally freeze time right now...all three kids are at a really fun age right...Hailey is soooo old and helpful and responsible; Kai is the perfect 4 yr old (she puts her sister to shame in comparing their 4th year...let's hope I don't jinx myself!) and Luke is interactive, yet doesn't have that independent streak yet!  Kai said, "I just love babies because they are cute and chubby!"  Totally agree!!!

 

The full 12 months!!!!!!  I loved this idea and I'm so sad that it's over!  It felt weird not taking the tie pic when he turned 13 months (yes, I'm THAT far behind in the blogging world!!!) even though he was a big pain to get him to sit still for a picture after month 4! :) 



 

Luke: newborn, 6 months, 1 year!

And throwing this in there just for fun...

 Kai: newborn, 6 months, 1 year!

Poor Hailey...even though she was the first child and should have the most photos, my creative juices weren't flowing yet (meaning blogging, Pintrest, and Etsy weren't around yet to steal ideas from!!!!!)

More to come on Luke turning O-N-E!!!!! 

Easter

Easter was here before we knew it!  Once Luke, Kailee, and I got back from Virginia, Leevi had to head out of town for training for the deployment.  He got home the Friday before Easter!

Kailee participated in her age group egg hunt (field scramble!) but Hailey had a birthday party to go to for a friend from school so she opted to be on time for that!

 Excited to get the eggs down from the attic!

The top left is our Resurrection Egg set from the Seatons...if you've never heard of it, it's definitely worth a google!  Buy them on Amazon or you can easily make your own!  They tell the true story of Jesus' journey to the cross.  Leevi hates the Easter bunny...last year I was in the hospital after just having Luke, so the Easter bunny didn't visit us on Easter, but instead came about a week later....we really liked it much better that way! 

 Following the clues to their Easter baskets hidden by the bunny....

 I totally forgot about ordering a personalized Easter basket for Luke!  He got this baseball basket from my parents on his first Easter last year, so it definitely did the trick! 

 We had the Greens over for a non-traditional Easter dinner...(Hailey made the placecards)

 

An attempt at a group photo with the Green boys before their egg hunt out back!  

 
 We have a cool set of nature eggs that are fun to hide out back (can you find the one in the top left picture?)  We hid about 75 eggs and it took them awhile to find all of them (Actually, Kailee just found a "rock" egg last week almost a month and a half later!)

 Score!

Our BBQ Easter dinner!